“A favor? Attacking Arthurian legends is a favor?”
“Oh, I’m not here for King Arthur. I like this book, actually,” he said, glancing around and nodding his approval. “Classic. Traditional. When men were men and women were—”
“Witches? Queens who had affairs with their husbands’ best friends?”
“Ladies,” he said. “Who dressed properly.”
He eyed my outfit, my leggings, boots, and sweater.
“That’s what you get out of the King Arthur stories? Fashion?” I asked.
“And good manners.”
“Right, good manners. Violence, adultery, and incest. I’m starting to think you don’t actually read the books you claim to love or hate. No, you wave them like flags in a war no one’s fighting but you.”
This was all bluster on my part, but I wanted to make X angry enough at me that he didn’t even glance into the dark woods to see Duke hiding, I mean, concealing himself in the shadows.
“If you’re going to be like that, I’ll go,” he said.
“Oh no. Anything but that.”
“I’ll go…before giving you the advice I came to give you.”
“You came here to give me advice? How did you even know I was here?”
“You’re being watched,” he said. “I don’t know who’s watching or why, but someone is keeping a very close eye on you. Probably because they know what a troublemaker you are.”
“I’m flattered to be so notorious.” I waved my hand at him. “Come on, what’s this ‘advice’ of yours? Let’s get it over with.”
I was pretty sure I knew what he would say.
Quit your job. Join the Burners. Eat my words and die.That sort of thing.
“You’re trying to find the March Hare,” he said.
Shocked, I said nothing.
“If you do, you won’t like what you find.”
I snorted a laugh, more bluster. “About hares?”
“About your mother.”
My stomach sank into the fabled earth of Camelot.
“My mother?”
“Take it from me, March. Your mother wasn’t the saint you think she was.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? My mother was a legend. Dr. Fanshawe said so herself, and she never gives out compliments.”
“Find out at your own peril,” X said. “But if I were you…I’d drop the whole thing.”
“Good thing you’re not me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, then with a jerk of the reins, he turned and rode away.
Chapter Fifteen
